"As if you didn't know?
Oh, what a hypocrite! Your sister Agathe--who is as much your sister as I am sister of the tower of Issoudun, if one's to believe your father, and who has no claim at all upon you--is coming here from Paris with her son, a miserable two-penny painter, to see you." "My sister and my nephews coming to Issoudun!" he said, bewildered.
"Oh, yes! play the surprised, do; try to make me believe you didn't send for them! sewing your lies with white bread, indeed! Don't fash yourself; we won't trouble your Parisians--before they set their feet in this house, we shall have shaken the dust of it off ours.

Max and I will be gone, never to return.

As for your will, I'll tear it in quarters under your nose, and to your very beard--do you hear?
Leave your property to your family, if you don't think we are your family; and then see if you'll be loved for yourself by a lot of people who have not seen you for thirty years,--who in fact have never seen you! Is it that sort of sister who can take my place?
A pinchbeck saint!" "If that's all, my little Flore," said the old man, "I won't receive my sister, or my nephews.

I swear to you this is the first word I have heard of their coming.

It is all got up by that Madame Hochon--a sanctimonious old--" Max, who had overheard old Rouget's words, entered suddenly, and said in a masterful tone,-- "What's all this ?" "My good Max," said the old man, glad to get the protection of the soldier who, by agreement with Flore, always took his side in a dispute, "I swear by all that is most sacred, that I now hear this news for the first time.